Donald Trump ran on a promise to use the powers of the government for revenge against those he believed wronged him. He now appears to be fulfilling that campaign promise while threatening to expand his powers well beyond Washington.
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On Friday, the FBI searched the home of John Bolton, Trump’s first-term national security adviser-turned-critic, who last week in an interview called the administration “the retribution presidency”.
Trump’s team has opened investigations of Democrat Letitia James, the New York attorney general who sued Trump’s company over alleged fraud for falsifying records, and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, who as a congressman led Trump’s first impeachment.
The Republican administration has charged congresswoman LaMonica McIver over her actions at an immigration protest in Newark, New Jersey, after arresting Mayor Ras Baraka, also a Democrat. Under investigation, too, is former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a candidate for mayor of New York.
Trump has directed prosecutors to investigate two other members of his first administration: Miles Taylor, who wrote a book warning of what he said were Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, and Chris Krebs, who earned the president’s wrath for assuring voters that the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden, was secure.
The actions look like the payback Trump said he would pursue after being hit with four separate sets of criminal charges during his four years out of office.
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